Standard Template Construct
by Eye of Magnus
Summary: A young man named Kadmon who lives alone in a forest meets someone from the outside world who may be able to help him remember his past.


If he was honest with himself, Kadmon could remember very little of his past. As he carried the massive fish he had caught back to his forest shack, he reflected on the things he did know about himself. He was 22 Terran years old, and he lived on the planet Galan. He'd heard there were other planets with people living on them, but he could only remember living on this one his whole life. According to Kagyu, the old man who had first taken him in when he was lost in the wilderness with amnesia, it was an unremarkable world in Ultima Segmentum, somewhere near the south of the galactic core, just east of the Maelstrom Zone. Galan was supposedly a civilized world, although Kadmon wouldn't have guessed it from his experience. Ever since that man had passed away he hadn't seen a single trace of other human beings when he went out to hunt and search for food. He thought about that strange piece of metal that the old man had told him was extremely valuable. Kadmon couldn't recall its name, but he knew it was from a glorious past- an ancient time thousands of years ago when humanity possessed technology that was beyond anything the people of this age could imagine. He wondered what the device had once been used for, but he couldn't begin to guess at it. As Kadmon was crossing a dirt path he had gone over many times before, his thoughts were suddenly interrupted in a way that would change his life forever.

Kadmon felt a hard impact that pitched him off of his feet, and made him drop the fish he was carrying. He looked up in shock and anger at the beast that had attacked him. Its eyes were glowing, but it didn't appear to have any mouth or limbs, and although it didn't flap its wings, it was still floating in the air. The brutish creature growled at him, but made no other move to attack. Kadmon seized the opportunity and beat the monster's skull with his fist, leaving a dent in it. In return, the Land Speeder's door opened, and its driver shot Kadmon in the chest with a stub gun. Instead of leaving a severe puncture wound as it should have, the stub round bounced harmlessly off of Kadmon's chest, barely even leaving a bruise to mark its impact.

"Ah! Hey, what the heck was that?" Kadmon demanded. "It's kind of annoying. Please don't do it again."

"What in Terra's name- what is he? I just shot him and he's not even bleeding!" the shooter exclaimed in shock. Kadmon took a step towards his attacker, "Aah, I surrender! Please don't hurt me!" she said, dropping her gun.

"What? No, I didn't want to hurt you. I was only asking you to stop attacking me." Kadmon explained. "Anyway, my name's Kadmon, and I- wait are you a human?" he asked.

"Of course I'm a human. Couldn't you tell by looking at me?" The young woman answered. "My name is Brittna, and I work for the local Adeptus Mechanicus forge. My father is the Arch Magos there."

"Mechanicus? Arch what? Sorry, I don't really know what that stuff means," Kadmon admitted.

"You've never heard of the Machine Cult before?" Brittna asked in disbelief. How could anyone living on a civilized world not know what the Mechanicus is?

"You're actually the second person I can remember meeting in my entire life. I'm sure I have a lot to learn about the world around me, but I would be glad to invite you for dinner at my shack."

"Well it looks like I have a lot to explain. Come on then, we can ride there together in my land speeder. I'm sorry about hitting you with it by the way,"

"Your what speeder?" Kadmon asked. "I thought that thing was some kind of animal,"

"No, it's a machine that helps you go places faster. After you put your fish in the back, you can get inside through the door. It's quite safe." Brittna explained. "You do know how to describe where your shack is from here, right?"

"Sure I do!" Kadmon said. "I can't wait to finally learn about other people, this is starting to get exciting!"

Brittna thought this strange man she met in the forest was a bit eccentric, but he seemed harmless enough. In any case, she felt safer around someone as strong as him than she did travelling alone.

Soon, they had both arrived at Kadmon's humble shelter, and they departed from the land speeder. Kadmon started cooking the fish over a fire, while Brittna went inside the shack after getting his permission to enter and look around.

When she went in, she looked around in the crude, single-room shack, and found exactly what she had been searching for sitting in plain sight. On top of a wooden dresser in the back of the room sat the strange piece of metal- that is, a component from a Standard Template Construction device. She walked towards it to get a closer look, still in disbelief at what she had found.

"Please don't touch that Brittna," Kadmon said, suddenly behind her. "It's one of my most prized possessions that I keep in memory of my father," he explained.

"I won't touch it, but I think you should know what this is. That object is a piece of an STC device."

"A what device?"

"An STC device, a Standard Template Construct," Brittna said, realizing she would have to explain herself. "Thousands of years ago, humans invented a type of holographic projector that would store extremely detailed instructions, or a Standard Template for how to build different machines. It was said that there used to be at least one copy for every single machine that was ever invented by humans. That piece of metal you're keeping on your dresser is a piece of one of those hologram projectors. If we put all the pieces together, we can learn how to build whatever the invention is. We might even rediscover something that hasn't been made since before the Unification Wars on Terra."

The Hermit Kagyu's words echoed in Kadmon's memory, "technology that was beyond anything the people of this age could imagine."

"You know if you decide to leave and go with me, we could take that with us and look around the planet for the other pieces" Brittna suggested. She didn't dare mention that she would be required to give the STC to the Mechanicum if she ever found all the pieces, which meant that Kadmon might never see his part, or any of the others again.

"Well ok, that sounds like fun. I don't have too much in this shack, and I'd like to travel and see other parts of the world anyway, so I might as well. Before I can go, there is one other thing I need to take with us," Kadmon answered. He opened a long, thin chest that was under his bed, and took out a power sword with a long handle. "My dad also gave this to me; he told me it's called a glaive or something. He said that if anything ever tries to hurt me, I can use this to protect myself," he explained, activating it through the hilt as an electric blue glow enveloped the blade.

Brittna shrieked in fright, "Be careful with that thing it's really dangerous!" Something about the sword's blue glow seemed familiar to her, as if this weapon had some kind of historical significance that she couldn't recall.

Kadmon deactivated the power field and placed the sword in a strap he kept behind his back. "All right then. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's have some dinner,"

After they finished eating and putting away the leftovers, it was already getting dark, so they decided to camp out for the night. Kadmon slept in his own bed one last time, and Brittna set up a tent and sleeping bag for herself in front of the shack, making sure to keep her stub gun with her for protection.

This would mark the beginning of Kadmon's adventure around the planet Galan to search for the missing STC components. Along the way, he would discover far more than he expected, learning about the Imperium he lives in, and making many friends, but many more enemies along the way. Eventually, he would discover the secrets of his past, travel to other worlds, and even successfully perform valorous acts of such magnitude that nobody would have believed them possible, and many who would hear of the things he had done would refuse to believe the stories, though almost all of them were true. He would save his own world, and by extension many others, even if very few would live to remember his name or heroism, but first he would awaken early the next day to eagerly face the morning, which is where our tale shall continue in the next chapter.


End file.
